Free people

“ But when we see a people seeking freedom, and the right to establish itself upon the basis of the purest and highest human interests, then it is clear to me, that this people is prepared to pass from the period of its minority, and to become free as men who have attained to years of discretion, and it would grieve me if thou wast not of the same mind, if thou wouldst not give thy voice for the highest sacred right of this people! ”

“ It is for us to convince the members of every class that, in the long run, disregard of the fundamental rights of others would be in conflict with their own permanent welfare and happiness, and cannot be permitted if we are to remain a free people. ”

“ Join us, to use such moral means as to correct public sentiment throughout the region where slavery exists, and to impress upon the people of the Free states a manly sense of their own rights. Join us, to place "just men" in all our public offices; men whose example a whole people may safely imitate. ”

“ May He who has given to our nation the blessings of free prayer, free preaching, free writing, free speech, and free assembly, with their wholesome fruit of equal laws, tempered power, and moderated liberty, grant that this humble labour may in some measure contribute to make those inestimable boons dearer than ever to the hearts of our people, and that it may contribute also to place them in a position more readily to foil every endeavour to snatch those boons or to steal them away from us and from mankind! ”

“ Much depends upon us for the help of our color—more than many are aware. If we are lazy and idle the enemies of freedom spread it as a cause why we ought not to be free, and say we are better in a state of servitude, and that giving us our liberty would be an injury to us; and by such conduct we strengthen the bands of oppression and keep many in bondage who are more worthy than ourselves, I entreat you to consider the obligations we lie under to help forward the cause of 'freedom. ”

“ To vindicate their title to a fair chance in the world as a free people, it is sufficient, and alone sufficient, that it appear to reasonable minds that they are in good and evil very much like the rest of mankind, and that they are endowed in about the same degree with the conservative and progressive elements of character common to ordinary humanity. ”

“ By a people’s being free, I understand no more than their being governed by general laws, well known, not depending upon the ambulatory will of any man, or any set of men, and established so as not to be changed, but in a regular and uniform way; for reasons which regard the body of the society, and not through favour or prejudice to particular persons, or particular classes. ”

“ Let us ask of the civilized citizen whether he feels the laws of civilization to be a yoke; he does not, he obeys them of his own free will, they are his own order of life. Unfree, slaves and serfs, will be those only who carry with resentment the burden of the laws they must obey. Unfree feels the savage people fighting against the laws of civilization ”

“ Should the English people ever become free, they will reflect upon the part which those who presume to represent their will have played in the great drama of the revival of liberty, with feelings which it would become them to anticipate. ”

“ That no free Government or the blessing of Liberty can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. ”

“ Morals are but reason applied to all the acts of life.... They are among free men what irons, whipping-posts, and gibbets are among peoples in slavery.... This journey will show you the wondrous effects of liberty on morals, on industry, and on the amelioration of men.... My desire has been to depict to my compatriots a people with whom it behooves, from every point of view, that they become intimately united. ”

“ We have an interest in free personal intercourse with all the people living under a common government with ourselves. We wish to be free to discuss, with any and all of them, all the principles of liberty and all the interests of humanity. We wish, when we meet a fellow man, to be at liberty to speak freely with him of his and our condition; to be at liberty to do him a service ”

“ If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so,—and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter. ”

“ And I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts. ”

“ For a city or a people to be truly free they must have the secure right, without economic, political or police pressure, to make their own choice and to live their own lives. ”

“ Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. ”

“ We offer it to you—a Union based upon universal liberty, impartial justice and equal rights, upon sacred pledges faithfully fulfilled, upon the faith of the Nation nobly vindicated; a Union without a slave and without a tyrant; a Union of truly democratic States; a Union capable of ripening to full maturity all that is great and hopeful in the mind and heart of the American people; a Union on every square foot of which free thought may shine out in free utterance; a Union between the most promising elements of progress, between the most loyal impulses in every section of this vast Republic ”

“ Ours is the “land of the free”—nobody denies that—nobody challenges it. [Maybe it is because we won’t let other people testify.] ”

“ What is it [to] be born free and equal, and not to live? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? ”

“ But what are lands, and seas, and skies, to civilized man, without society, without knowledge, without morals, without religious culture; and how can these be enjoyed, in all their extent and all their excellence, but under the protection of wise institutions and a free government? Fellow-citizens, there is not one of us, there is not one of us here present, who does not, at this moment, and at every moment, experience, in his own condition, and in the condition of those most near and dear to him, the influence and the benefits of this liberty and these institutions. ”

“ Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own. ”

“ It cannot set its own pace; it cannot choose its own route; it must follow the will of others, not its own desire; and it is small comfort to the slave, whose chains gall him, that the slave-driver bears the name of a free man.
Liberty, in brief, is a private, not a public, virtue. ”

“ Force of character, freedom from the prejudices of conventional custom, conventional religion or conventional government—these are what distinguish the true freeman, the man free in soul, from the slave. ”

“ Or have we not—it is a more serious question—exchanged dependence upon the great for dependence upon the public, rather than learnt to stand upon our own feet? Have we made ourselves, and, if we have not, how can we make ourselves, worthy of our position as free men? ”

“ They had bartered liberty for equality, and because the pressure was equal on all, they deemed themselves free; while the privileges of class with us suggested the sense of bondage to the poor man, whose actual freedom was yet unencumbered. ”

“ Nations have made an idol of Liberty, but what nation on the face of the earth is free? My youth is still like a blue and cloudless sky. If I set myself to obtain wealth or power, does it mean that I must make up my mind to lie, and fawn, and cringe, and swagger, and flatter, and dissemble? ”

“ Look to history, and when your heart saddens at the fact that liberty never yet was lasting in any corner of the world, and in any age, you will find the key of it in the gloomy truth that all who were yet free regarded liberty as their privilege, instead of regarding it as a principle. ”

“ All the liberty therefore that we yet lack will gradually spring up — there, where our bondage is — in our minds. To be free we have but to see our chains. Are we disappointed — are we sometimes angry, because the crowd or any part of the crowd around us bows submissively to mischievous usages or unjust laws? ”

“ Rather, it is the other way: we can love, be merciful, tender, compassionate, therefore we ought. Liberty itself is a law to the free, the source of moral obligation, the gift of Him "whose service is perfect freedom." ”

“ They repeat, as the fundamental maxim of our civil policy, that all men are born free and equal, and quote from our Declaration of Independence, "that men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." ”

“ From this he concluded,—and acted on that conclusion—that all men are created free and equal, and that the cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. ”

“ And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. ”

“ Lastly, we may ask: To what purpose is our free-will given us, if all souls, good and bad alike, users and abusers of the liberty they had on earth, enter into their long home all of one uniform and spotless hue? ”

“ I want to remind you of the fact that we are now free; that we are American citizens; that under the laws we are entitled to the same rights and privileges as yourselves. Slavery no longer exists in this country—all are now free men. What is freedom to mean to us? ”

“ In the states above humanity, on the contrary, unmixed good so prevails that all are necessarily good. But in the middle state of humanity, good and evil are so balanced that liberty results; and free will and consequent responsibility are born. ”

“ To declare a man to be free, and equal with his fellow, and then to refrain from enacting laws powerful to insure him in such freedom and equality, is to trifle with the most sacred of all the functions of sovereignty. ”

“ But, whatever wrongs you may endure, comfort yourselves with two reflections: first, that there is the beginning of a better state of things, from which your children will derive much more benefit than you can; secondly, that a great majority of the American people are sincerely determined that you shall be protected in your rights as freemen. ”

“ The society, composed of free men, conceals itself only with the free. Collateral consequences we are not responsible for. It is not this society which has produced the great moral revolution which the age exhibits. ”

“ Call rather those who do these things for certain small ends slaves on a small scale, and the others, as they deserve, slaves on a grand scale—This also I grant.—And does freedom seem to you to be something independent and self-governing?—Of course.—When, therefore, it is in another's power to put hindrances in a man's way and subject him to compulsion, say confidently that this man is not free. ”

“ Let man be FREE! The message rings,
And an echo answers back:
Uncrown all kings, unrobe all priests,
And clothe the unclothed back!
Then stand up, men, and demand your dues,
And fear not the tyrants' frown,
And do not bow at the shrine of his law,
Or reverence his legal gown.
But strike - if you would be free,
Oh slaves - if you would be free!
On! Do and dare! Be brave! Be FREE!
This work was published before January 1, 1928, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ So, to reduce our moral judgments, confusion and all, to small compass, we are free, others are not; they are free, we are not; and our freedom is bound by duty, by duty to the moral law, while their freedom, unless a hopeless lawlessness, is bound by the environment and its law. Again, good and evil are each unmixed, and moral acts serve two masters—that is to say, spring from two sources. ”

“ Let me be a free man—free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself—and i will obey every law, or submit to the penalty. ”